All I ever wanted was a gun and a good read...
The January issue of Chicago Magazine has an article called "In Their Sights" profiling the plaintiffs who are challenging this city's handgun ban. The Supreme Court will hear the case in February, having already overturned a similar ordinance in Washington, D.C.
I grew up with guns. My father had hunting rifles and my stepdad kept a pistol and a shotgun in the house for self-defense. In the Ohio countryside in the 1980s, there was no "911" for emergencies; if anything bad went down at our house, we were pretty much on our own. So I love shocking the good citizens of Chicago by casually mentioning that I own a gun. I don't have custody of it since that would violate the law (for now, anyway). Instead, it resides with my father back home. But I do have my State of Illinois FOID--Firearm Owner's Identification--card. And one night it came to my rescue in the most unlikely sort of way.
After my workout I stopped at the library to pick up several books I had on reserve. (In addition to liking guns, we Wasps are quite fond of the public library. All of those lovely books and CDs and movies... absolutely free!) Having scrabbled around in my wallet and gym bag, I realized that I seemed to have misplaced my library card. What to do? Despair threatened to set in. There were my shiny new books on the reserve shelf. In between stood a severe-looking gentleman. A total law-and-order type, I could tell. The library allows patrons to take out books with a state-issued ID showing proof of residence, but my driver's license still had my old address on it. I looked through my wallet one more time... and spied my FOID card. A state-issued photo ID. Genius! I offered it up to the librarian and held my breath. He studied it for a tense moment, then smiled and reached behind him to the reserve shelf. Victory! (Should I notify the NRA?)
But seriously, it's kind of fitting that for all of my pistol-packing babe bravado, the only use to which I've put this card is to spring a couple of... books.
I grew up with guns. My father had hunting rifles and my stepdad kept a pistol and a shotgun in the house for self-defense. In the Ohio countryside in the 1980s, there was no "911" for emergencies; if anything bad went down at our house, we were pretty much on our own. So I love shocking the good citizens of Chicago by casually mentioning that I own a gun. I don't have custody of it since that would violate the law (for now, anyway). Instead, it resides with my father back home. But I do have my State of Illinois FOID--Firearm Owner's Identification--card. And one night it came to my rescue in the most unlikely sort of way.
After my workout I stopped at the library to pick up several books I had on reserve. (In addition to liking guns, we Wasps are quite fond of the public library. All of those lovely books and CDs and movies... absolutely free!) Having scrabbled around in my wallet and gym bag, I realized that I seemed to have misplaced my library card. What to do? Despair threatened to set in. There were my shiny new books on the reserve shelf. In between stood a severe-looking gentleman. A total law-and-order type, I could tell. The library allows patrons to take out books with a state-issued ID showing proof of residence, but my driver's license still had my old address on it. I looked through my wallet one more time... and spied my FOID card. A state-issued photo ID. Genius! I offered it up to the librarian and held my breath. He studied it for a tense moment, then smiled and reached behind him to the reserve shelf. Victory! (Should I notify the NRA?)
But seriously, it's kind of fitting that for all of my pistol-packing babe bravado, the only use to which I've put this card is to spring a couple of... books.
posted by The Tailored Woman at Tuesday, December 15, 2009
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